NATIONAL STATISTICS BOARD

AGENDA 

Thursday December 05 2024

Room 308, Government Buildings 

 10.00 to 14.00

National Statistics Board Minutes

The meeting took place in Room 308, Government Buildings, Dublin
Date: Thursday, 5th December 2024, 10am to 2pm
Members present: Ms. Anne Vaughan (Chairperson), Ms. Eithne Fitzgerald, Dr. Clíona Saidléar, Mr. John Shaw, Mr. Jim Scheer*, Dr. Martina Lawless, Dr. Emma Cunningham and Ms. Jennifer Banim
Non-members in attendance from CSO: Paul Morrin, Tomas Kelly*¹, Ciaran Dooly*², Pamela Lafferty*³ and Brian Cahill (Secretary)
Non-members in attendance from Department of Health: Muiris O’Connor¹ and Pauline White₁

• attended remotely
  ¹ Attended for items 1
  ² Attended for items 5
  ³ Attended for items 6

Item 1: Health Data – Recent Developments and Future Challenges

The Board received a presentation on Health and related data: current position, plans and challenges from Muiris O’Connor, Assistant Secretary, Department of Health.

The discussion between the Board, colleagues from the Department of Health and the CSO highlighted the progress made in recent years and the potential for progress in this area in 2025. It was noted that:

• Ensuring citizens have access to their own health information is essential. The planned App to provide this health information to citizens would also allow the input of health information by the user.
• Various healthcare providers hold data that will come under the Health Information Bill, including Community Care Providers (e.g. GPs), Social Care Providers (Private Nursing Homes), Community Disability Care Providers. The Health Information Bill (hopefully to be enacted in 2025) will provide the basis for the collection of PPSNs by all care providers.
• Once available, statistical data on health records will facilitate cross-dimensional analysis between health outcomes and many other metrics, such as environmental and economic measures. E.g. relationship between warmth and well-being measured by the relationship between household insulation and prescriptions.
• Measuring positive health behaviours is also important (e.g. living well, maintaining friendships) as well as measuring the negative health outcomes.
• What role can CSO / NSB play in the roll out of good data practices, data architecture and data capacity among care providers who are commencing their data journey? The draft Health Information Bill provides for the categorisation of records which can be provide by care providers. It is proposed that the HSE will be established as the Digit Health Authority which will support the implementation by care providers.

Item 2: Minutes of NSB meeting September 5th, 2024 (NSB 2024-5-2)

The minutes of the previous meeting were agreed.

Item 3: Formal Sign off on the NSB Statement of Strategy review and Next Steps (NSB 2024-5-3)

The Board formally approved the publication of the Mid-term Review of the NSB Statement of Strategy. The Board were informed of the planned publication date and the communication plan for the strategy review. The review will be published on the NSB website, a Press Release will be published on the CSO website. Email notification of the publication will be sent to the NSB circulation list, the Administrative Data Seminar Group circulation list and to CSMB. A letter will be sent to MoS Hildegarde Naughton informing her of the publication of the strategy review.

Item 4: CSO Director General’s Report to NSB (NSB 2024-5-4)

The DG’s Report to the National Statistics Board was taken as read and the Board discussed in more detail items including:

Cross-Dimensional Reporting

The Board noted progress being made in cross-dimensional reporting by incorporating environmental data with other data types such as economic statistics. One such example highlighted by the Board is the publication Hospitality: A Value Chain Analysis 2021 which presents outputs, costs, sales and turnover of hospitality sector with emissions and energy use data for the sector. This type of reporting provides very tangible benefits to policy makers. This collaboration between climate / energy and economic divisions in the CSO could be replicated further in CSO reporting.
The Board noted the continued production of SDG outputs and the need to be accurate with the language in relation to progress and success. Fine line.

Data Stewardship

The Board discussed CSO’s Data Stewardship role and the opportunity for CSO to provide supports to other agencies in terms of addressing shared challenges, such as meeting GDPR requirements while enabling statistical analysis.
The Board noted that standardised classifications are available on the data standards section of the website. These standards can and should be incorporated into administrative date systems across the national statistical system. It was noted that a standardised approach to collecting and reporting age could be considered.
The Board heard that the Health Regions are being integrated into CSO reporting and a publication on the Health Regions was recently published (November 2024) utilising Census 2022 data matched with administrative data.

Census Pilot

The Board were informed that the Census Pilot was a success, and a project evaluation reporting is being drafted. The Digital First approach to collection allowed the testing of the survey instrument, the IT infrastructure and case management systems. The digital approached allowed for the collection of metrics on how people filled in the form, what questions proved challenging, the impact of marketing and social media campaigns on responses. The pilot also tested new questions introduced to Census by the Census Advisory Group (CAG), which included questions on mental health; sexual orientation and gender identity. The Board requested a presentation on the learnings from the Pilot in due course.

Item 5: OCR Review and CSO Action Plan (NSB 2024-5-5)

The Board received a presentation from Ciaran Dooly, Principal Officer, CSO on the Organisational Capability Review (OCR) and the CSO’s action plan in response to the report.
The Board heard how the OCR is one element of a suite of inputs the CSO takes onboard when developing their work program, others include the NSB Strategy for Statistics, The Civil Service Renewal Plan, ESS Code of Practice, Communications Strategy, IT Strategy, HR Strategy and CSO’s Statement of Strategy. The OCR recommendations will be assigned, and an action plan will be developed in Q1 2025 which will then be brought to the NSB for review.
Reflecting on the presentation and the OCR report the Board noted:

• The OCR process, while demanding, is a valuable exercise.
• The OCR recognised that there is a lot working well in the CSO.
• As the role of the CSO changes from data provider to a provider of insight and data services the Culture and Values of must also reviewed and evolve.
• The benefit of utilising more experienced staff as seconded statisticians. Seconded statisticians should be a salesperson/advocate for the NDI and be able to engage with Departmental leadership.
• The importance of engaging with stakeholders to inform them of the progress being made across the systems and the potential benefits from engaging with the CSO on their data needs.
• The importance of staff recognition (non-pay), career progression and staff support to ensure CSO are an employer of choice.
• The importance of building trust when commencing the journey of accessing privately held data.
• That a balance must be struck between the gathering data by CSO and the access provided to researchers.
• The potential for continued and greater strategic interaction between the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service and the Irish Government Statistical Service.
• The CSO must ensure focus is maintained on priorities. The demand for data and insight will continue to grow while, due to resources constraints, CSO will not be in a position to meet all demands and must priorities over time.

Item 6: Update on VDR and relaunch of National Data Infrastructure

The Board received a presentation from Pamela Lafferty, Senior Statistician in the Administrative Data Centre, CSO on Virtual Data Room and the relaunch of the National Data Infrastructure.
Discussing the VDR and the NDI the Board noted that:

• When the VDR moves out of pilot phase it will be important that a process be established to determine which projects are suitable for the VDR and how these projects are prioritised. An advisory board could be formed to oversee this process, ensuring that decisions align with the principles of value for money and the public good.
• The National Data Analyst Network should support the sharing of data and analysis skills across the public service.

Item 7: Update on Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) for the production of official statistics (AIML4OS) project

This agenda item was postponed until the February 2025 NSB meeting.

Item 8: AOB

The Board discussed the proposed NSB meeting dates for 2025 and noted their availability.

Item 9: Private Business

The Board members had a private discussion.